NASA’s Internet Connection Of 91 Gbps Is 13,000 Times Faster Than Yours! Know The Truth Behind It

Posted On March 8, 2017April 27, 2018

Posted By Parveen

NASA’s Internet Connection Of 91 Gbps Is 13,000 Times Faster Than Yours! This is the first sentence you might have read on many blogs regarding the internet speed at NASA. Yeah, here too! Many Facebook posts also viral this as “World’s Fastest Internet Connection at NASA, 91 Gbps”. But here we are going to share with you the actual facts with you. Contrary to those reports the NASA has only 2,000 times faster internet than the average household internet speed of 6.6 MB/s. It is also the fact that NASA has achieved the internet speed of 91Gb/s. Something doesn’t add-up, right!

NASA’s Internet Connection Of 91 Gbps Is 13,000 Times Faster Than Yours! Know The Truth Behind It

The point where media played the cheap journalism game is when they mentioned the units of measurement of data flow. The viral internet speed that NASA uses is 91Gbps and domestic average internet speed is 6.6MBps in the US. Which will lead to 13,000 times faster speed, if you miss the small “b” in the NASA’s internet speed! There is a difference between the way they compared the values to get the ratio. If you are not well familiar with computers then I want to tell you that 1GB = 8Gb, as one byte contains 8 bits of information. The 91Gbps was actually 11.3GBps that leads to the actual ratio between the household internet and NASA’s internet, which is 1,750 times faster.

Moreover, the hoaxed speed was achieved only once by NASA during an experiment performed in May 2014. Which was conducted to achieve the maximum speed at which data files can be transmitted between two computers kept at a distance? For instance, the experiment performed between two systems kept at SC13 Denver and NASA Goddard center in Maryland. The research paper published by NASA shows that the maximum speed achieved by them was 91 Gigabits per second.

NASA doesn’t use the common local data networks but a specially dedicated network, which is called Shadow Network. The Shadow Network is like the common internet except the fact that it only connects few organizations and research facilities. NASA’s Shadow Network is also called Energy Science Network or ESnet. ESnet is a high-performance unclassified national network which is developed for huge-sized data transmission required in various studies. ESnet is more like the first ever network developed by US defense, ARPANET. The experiment conducted at NASA was supposed to achieve the internet speed of 100Gbps but it achieved the 91Gbps mark which is still the fastest speed ever reached by the internet.

A map of ESnet’s connected sites. Image: Courtesy of ESnet

ESnet is a high-performance unclassified national network which is developed for huge-sized data transmission required in various studies. ESnet is more like the first ever network developed by US defense, ARPANET. The experiment conducted at NASA was supposed to achieve the internet speed of 100Gbps but it achieved the 91Gbps mark which is still the fastest speed ever reached by the internet. The actual of the internet that NASA is currently using has not been made public.